Calgary Roughnecks at San Jose Stealth January 9th Game Preview

January 9, 2009
Author: tfitch

The San Jose Stealth start their 2009 NLL season at home against a healthy Calgary Roughnecks team. Looking at the Roughnecks offensive roster is a scary proposition. Tracey Kelusky, Josh Sanderson, Dane Dobbie, Jeff Shattler, Kaleb Toth and Cayle Ratcliff (Lewis Ratcliff’s little brother) are a formidable opponent for the Stealth’s new defensive corps to face in the first game. Thankfully that murder’s row is matched on the Stealth side by Colin Doyle, Jeff Zywicki, Cam Sedwick, Tom Johnson, Frank Resetarits and Rhys Duch. I’ll take my Stealth boys over the Roughnecks any day of the week, but it’s close.

The defensive comparison is also close. The Roughnecks do not necessarily have a big name shutdown defender like Eric Martin or Curtis Hodgson but every one of the Roughies is a name I’ve heard of so they’ve almost all been around the league for a while. They might be smart enough to stick with the Stealth’s offensive schemes, but I’m not sure they’re athletic enough to shutdown the Stealth offense. One thing the Roughnecks and other Canadian based teams have not done is draft American defenders for their athletic abilities. This is where the Stealth separate themselves from the Roughnecks and it just might be the deciding factor in the game. Most of the NLL teams are following this trend of getting great American athletes for defense and the Canadian teams need to adjust or they might get left behind. Calgary has been in the playoffs every year, but it might catch up with them soon.

Calgary’s coach Troy Cordingley is a tough son of a gun and in the summer lead Colin Doyle, Dan Dawson, Cam Woods, Jeff Shattler, Anthony Cosmo and several other NLLers to a Mann Cup victory for the Brampton Excelsiors of the OLA. But with a line up like that he’d have won the Champion’s Cup too so I’m not 100% sure he’s an elite coach or if he’s working with great talent. He’s surrounded with talent again this year so we’ll see how that goes. He’s obviously adept at using his talent, so he’s got that going for him. But if he loses his talent would he be another Derek Keenan? That’s not fair to Cordingley, Keenan also fails using talent when he has it.

Former Stealth Players in the game for Calgary:
F Curt “Mouse” Malawsky
F Scott Ranger – though he never even got enough minutes to not be called a rookie after playing 2005 in San Jose. But he was in the team photo.
F Josh “Shooter” Sanderson was traded to Toronto as part of the deal that brought Cosmo to San Jose

Prediction:
It’ll be a close battle as it always is when Calgary comes to San Jose. San Jose 14 – Calgary 12

Other Previews:
Brian Shanahan’s NLL Insider Preview
NLL.com

Go Stealth!